3:02pm Wednesday 13th October 2010
By Giles Woodforde
It’s about as far from the world of Russian plutocrats, and their ever-open chequebooks for top-flight football clubs, as it is possible to imagine. The scene is 1990s Moscow, and Ivan’s mother and stepfather are screaming at each other because the vodka bottle has disappeared. Quietly Ivan, who is only four years old, slips away: unmissed, for he is simply another mouth to feed. “I’m out,” he says, “Into the wild, wild world.”
Hattie Naylor has based her new play Ivan and the Dogs on the real-life story of Ivan Mishukov, who spent two years living on the cold, hostile Moscow streets. Apart from a friendly man who scavenges food, Ivan’s only friends are a pack of wild dogs. Each dog acquires a name, and a personality. The dogs protect Ivan, but to start with they won’t allow him into their den: “I try,” says Ivan, “But Belka always barks ‘no’.” But eventually Ivan learns to bark himself, and is accepted: “Belka knows best and we do whatever she tells us”.
In this ATC/Soho Theatre production, previewed in Oxford, Ivan tells his story as a monologue, with all other voices and background sounds coming from a tape — the soundtrack voices all shout and sneer in Russian, which adds significantly to the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, Ivan himself — now grown to adulthood — spends much of the play’s hour-long, uninterrupted running time sitting on the front of the stage telling his story, as if to a small group of friends.
By working in this understated way, director Ellen McDougall heightens the impact of this extraordinary tale.
But all depends, of course, on the calibre of the actor playing Ivan, and here the production has found a winner in Rad Kaim. He paces the story superbly, and is particularly good at conveying the warmth of Ivan’s relationship with the dogs — warmth that is both physical and emotional.
The play runs at the Soho Theatre, London, until November 6. 020 7478 0100.
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